Press release archive

Details of Algeria’s human rights record and diplomatic negotiations between the UK and Algerian governments should not be the subject of secret hearings by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) when determining if Algerian detainees are to be returned to the risk of torture, said the human rights group Liberty.

In a landmark decision handed down today, the House of Lords Appellate Committee has ruled that those held in UK detention facilities in Iraq are protected by the Human Rights Act. The immediate implication is that there must be a full independent inquiry whenever detainees suffer inhuman treatment, torture or death whilst detained in UK military establishments anywhere in the world.

At 10:00 on Wednesday 13 June on St. Stephens Green, Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti and Public Interest Lawyers solicitor Phil Shiner will react to a landmark Law Lords ruling which will determine if Iraqi civilians abused by UK soldiers are subject to human rights protections.

On the evening of 8 June 2007, Liberty received a letter from Police Chief Constable Michael Todd on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) which refused to commence a police enquiry into allegations that extraordinary rendition flights had received UK logistical support.

The human rights group Liberty expressed grave concern that proposals to detain terror suspects for more than four weeks before they are charged will amount to internment and could act as a recruiting force for terrorists as the Home Secretary announced a new anti-terror consultation today.

Today the Attorney General will face new questions about his legal stance on whether stress, hooding and sleep and food deprivation “techniques” banned by the Heath Government in 1972 were authorised for use by British soldiers against Iraqi civilians.

As evidence is revealed of vulnerable detainees being imprisoned in overcrowded and flooded cells while fires burned, Liberty called on the Home Office to act. They requested the Home Secretary, John Reid, to order a public inquiry into the serious disturbance that took place at Harmondsworth detention centre in west London last November and into the treatment that led detainees to desperate measures.

The human rights group Liberty is urging MPs to support the rights of families whose loved ones die in state custody in a critical vote on the Corporate Manslaughter Bill tomorrow. The Home Secretary has declined the House of Lords’ proposal to include deaths in custody in the Bill and today urged MPs to give him the power to consider the issue at some indefinite point in the future.